Thanks Youtube

Let your children loose on youtube and it’s entirely possible they will

-Become completely addicted to Macklemore and watch all his videos every day.  (Finnegan)

-Watch totally inappropriate amounts of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show.  (Verona)

-Discover what becomes one of your favorite hooping videos.  (Finnegan)

-Watch one too many old punk videos and get obsessed with the bright crazy makeup, then watch one too many Blink 182 music videos and get obsessed with Travis Barker’s mohawk, and then this happens.

Just look at her… she’s a little rockstar in the making.  Youtube….

90 Billion Sodas

David and I have a new obsession, and it’s our goal to try all the bazillion kinds of fancy soda at this nondescript little hole in the wall my friend Dierdre found, Rocket Burger.

Over 300 different kinds of soda and new ones all the time that the staff is usually super excited about.  These people know their soda.

I totally wasn’t kidding about David and I trying them all… so be prepared for more soda posts.

We were only going to get a couple, but then they said if you buy five you get one free so… hell… you can never have too much soda.  The Fungal Fruit tasted like bubble gum which isn’t bad I guess but not a taste I’m excited about.  River City makes an awesome root beer and the Raspberry-Lime Rickey and Stewart’s Grape was delicious and exactly what you’d expect.

The Chocolate-Covered Maple Smoked Bacon… oooo that was good, but not for long.  That’s one you get to share the novelty of with other people.  After my first sip I swore I would drink a whole case, but by the third sip I was like “The smell of bacon in this mixed with the moisture on my face that is unavoidable with a carbonated beverage makes me constantly think that my face is greasy… and now I’m done.”

The Cafe Azteca Sparkling and Spiced Espresso Cola was my favorite.  It tasted like a dirty chai latte, but in soda form… I bet it would make a mind blowing float.  The Cafe Azteca is now tied as my favorite soda with one I got previously on an adventure with Dierdre called Leninade.  The carbonated lemonade was good, but the bottle kept us laughing all evening long because it was covered with hilarious communism jokes including the tag line, “Leninade, A Taste Worth Standing in Line For”.  Because the only thing that can make a good soda better is getting a hearty serving of political humor as well.

Conversations With Children: Thongs

This is the conversation that happened between Verona and I this morning while I was getting dressed in my room and she was still cuddled in the bed looking at a book.

Verona: “Oh goodness gracious mom!  What is wrong with your underwear!?!?”

Me: “Nothing’s wrong with it honey, it’s a thong.  It’s suppose to be like this.”

Verona:  ”No I’m pretty sure it’s broken.  It’s not doing a good job of covering your butt at all.”

Me:  ”It’s not suppose to cover my butt.  That’s the style.”

Verona:  (looking back down at her book) “Well if you need help finding where the rest of it went I’ll come help you look.”

My Favorite Old Lady

Grandma Olive is the coolest old person that has ever lived… or at least the coolest one I’ve ever known.  She’s hilarious, has INSANE stories from the great depression, WWII, every other war, women’s lib, and anything else you can imagine that’s happened in this century, and she sees us visiting as an excuse to pump my children full of sugar.  And isn’t that what being a grandma is really about?

She’s not actually our grandma, she’s just awesome and didn’t have any grandchild that lived here which was a fabulous coincidence because I am also awesome and I also didn’t have any grandparents that lived here.  So we decided to team up and adopt one another as family.

Verona and Olive even had a joint birthday party one year because their birthday’s are only two days apart. Verona was turning 1 and Olive was turning 92. (Verona’s not as dirty as she looks, her face and hair are just covered with birthday cake.)

Verona and I went to hang out with her every Friday afternoon for a year and a half until her daughter decided to move to out to California to live with her.  We were all super sad, but we write to each other and she comes back to visit occasionally so she can see us and have pizza parties with her friends at the retirement home.  (I’m not even kidding.  She threw a pizza party last night for her friends.)

So today we went with her and her daughter Murial to the park.

Finn got to hitch a ride on her walker.

I’ve come to the conclusion that when people hit a certain age there ceases to be a middle of the road in terms of personality.  Old people are either the coolest people you’ve ever met in your life or they’re miserable and you wish they would just hurry up and die already… something about the loss of memory and bone density pulls one to the extremes I guess.  Regardless, if you don’t have an awesome old person in your life you should go find one, because they’re the best.

Analog My World

I shoot film much faster than I can afford to get it developed so I have a giant pile of it on the desk and whenever I have a few extra dollars I’ll go get a roll or two done.  That happened yesterday so I thought I’d show y’all what my world looks like… analog style.

This is what my world looked like growing up.  Pinecones, the tree where David and I got married, the truck stop where I spent a bazillion late nights in high school and college, and the playhouse in my mom’s backyard.

This is what my life looks like in Phoenix.  Cacti and palm trees.  P.S. That light flare in the last one makes me giddy.

And this is what my life looks like right now.  Searching for ladybugs, couch cushion forts or attempts at forts, David Boring, endless dishes, sweet spoiled dogs, ice cream with friends, and squirrels eating cereal on the couch in the morning.

It’s a beautiful world.

Hipsters make me poor.

I’m really into crappy old cameras right now.  Why?  Why do I want crappy film when I have an awesome DSLR to shoot with?  Who the hell knows.  Why am I also into making paninis?  Why is my husband into rock climbing?  Why is my dog Barney really into meticulously cleaning his balls with his tongue 9 times a day?  It just is what it is… and right now what it is is me and weird old analog pieces.

Last summer I got a giant box of old analog cameras from some friends who were getting rid of everything they owned to go overseas.  Some of them didn’t work, some were even crappier than I was interested in, but some were great… including an old giant polaroid instant camera and one pack of film for it.

I LOVE the polaroid.  I love it’s mediocre quality.  I love sitting there for five minutes staring intently at it while it slowly develops.  I love shaking it because Andre 3000 told me to… hey ya!  What I don’t love?  The fact that the film is stupid expensive.  Craaaazy stupid expensive.

Damn you hipsters… driving up the price with your perfect example of supply and demand!

I didn’t use it at all for more than six months because the idea of using film that was that expensive made me want to wet my pants with fear, but told Kristen if we ever went on our epic adventure I’d use at least one picture for it and did.  Then today I was feeling squirrely and said “What the hell, I’ll take a polaroid.  That film isn’t going to last forever… I’ll just use one.  It will be fine.”  And took this picture of Verona wearing the pipe cleaner crown we’d made this morning.

Then, as the polaroid rush wore off, I thought “Oh I’ll just take one more.”

Then reasoned, “Well if I’m using the super expensive film and I’ll probably never be able to afford anymore in my life ever I may as well do a whole series with that damn little crown so I can frame the whole thing and hang it somewhere.”

And now I’m doing some deep breathing, trying to calm myself down over the fact that I just used $20-$25 worth of film in one afternoon.  I’m out of control… and being out of control feels kinda good.  (Insert evil laughter here.)

I may not be as classy as I thought.

The conversation that happened last night while David and I were cleaning up from dinner.

David: “Do you want the rest of my beer?”

Me:  ”Sure.”  (Picking up his glass and seeing five or six fruit flies swimming around in it.)  ”Oh holy fruit flies batman!”

David:  ”They’re back?  They always get in my beer.  It’s gross.”

Me:  ”I know.”  (as I walk to the sink and start fishing the fruit flies out with a spoon)  ”They get in my wine all the time too.  If it’s just one or two I pretend I don’t see them, keep drinking, and count it as some extra protein in my day.  But since there’s so many and this is the expensive beer I guess I’ll do the classy thing and fish them out before I keep drinking.”

David:  ”Wait… in your world the classy thing to do is fish the flies out… and then drink the rest anyway?”

Me:  ”Oh… well when you say it like that…”

David: (interrupting me) “Nope, I take it back.  In your world that is classy, I’m not sure why I even doubted you.”